In 2000, Americans chose a President between two men who had both admitted to abusing psychoactive substances in their youth. And apparently both of them inhaled.

It’s now time for a comprehensive review of the federal government’s policies and laws regarding psychoactive substances. We now know much about the fiscal, physiological, and societal effects of abuse of these substances. Data don’t lie. Our current policies are a hodgepodge of panicked and piecemeal lawmaking based on a long history of conjecture about causes, costs, and consequences of substance abuse. For example, now marijuana use for medical purposes has become a state’s rights issue in California.

William Bennett, a conservative Republican, well describes the most pressing social problem of our time in his book (with co-authors), Body Count (Simon & Schuster, 1996). He makes crystal clear the connections between crime and psychoactive substance abuse. He reports on page 66, “What the literature suggests is that alcohol, like drugs, acts as a ‘multiplier’ of crime…. An estimated 10.5 million Americans are alcoholics and 73 million Americans have been directly affected by alcoholism in some form.” Indeed, talk to an ER doctor sometime about alcohol -- representative is Mike's note, take a look.

While I agree wholeheartedly with Bennett’s definition of the problem I cannot now agree with all of his recommended solutions. Despite the fact that he reports on pages 178-9 that the best studies (including one by Rand Corp.) have found that a dollar spent on treatment programs is worth seven spent on interdiction efforts, he ends the book with a focus on increasing interdiction efforts. He bases this advice on his interpretation of one-year increase in cocaine prices (in the U.S.) associated with production disruptions in Colombia. That is, according to Bennett, “Interdiction works, just look at 1990.”

Apparently the Drug War czar, former general Barry McCaffrey liked Bennett’s reasoning because he received Congressional approval to spend an additional $1.5 billion on Colombian interdiction efforts this next year. If we believe the Rand study, that translates into $10.5 billion worth of reduced consumption if the funds were spent on treatment programs in America instead on jungle fighting in Colombia.

Moreover, we now have more data to look at than the 1990 figure that Bennett saw as so crucial to his prescriptions. And the news is grim indeed. A February 1999 study by ABT Associates prepared for the Office of National Drug Control Policy shows prices for cocaine on American streets falling continuously through the 1980s and 1990s. In 1983 the street price for a gram of cocaine was about $350 and now it’s about $200. These data raise very serious questions about the potential success of interdiction efforts.

Our current policies are a hodgepodge of panicked and piecemeal lawmaking based on a long history of conjecture about causes, costs, and consequences of substance abuse.

And consider the confusion of our kids. We tell them not to use tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, etc. Then they see us smoking and drinking and Vice-Presidents and Governors fessing up to youthful use. What and who do they believe?

In the comprehensive policy review I’m suggesting ALL ideas must be considered. Open minds and creative solutions must prevail. Political agendas must defer to scientific evidence. The complicated interactions of drug and alcohol abuse and crime and jail time must be considered.

Successes and failures in other countries are pertinent as well. For example, in the Netherlands drugs are seen as a medical problem and marijuana (indeed, brands from around the world) is openly sold in cafes in tourist areas. Or go to Singapore – there it states on the back of the immigration form they hand you at the airport, “Warning, death for drug traffickers under Singapore law.” Many other countries already ban mass media advertising of tobacco and alcohol.

We need to listen carefully to the advice of people like Milton Friedman and George Schultz who recommend legalization, as well as the ideas of Elizabeth Dole and William Bennett who advocate increased military involvement in interdiction and harsher penalties for trafficking.

The opinions here range so widely in large part becaue of the narrow views we all have about problems of psychoactive substance abuse. It's high time to re-examine how we as a country and how we as individuals and families manage these problems.

Our present policies about psychoactive substances are broken. They simply don't work. They need to be fixed, and I'll work to do that in Washington.

And consider the confusion of our kids. We tell them not to use tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, etc. Then they see us smoking and drinking and Vice-Presidents and Governors fessing up to youthful use. What and who do they believe?